1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to a signal switch connector set and, more particularly, to a signal switch connector set applied at a motherboard.
2. Description of the Related Art
Universal serial bus (USB) is a serial port bus standard and is also an input/output (I/O) interface technology specification. It is widely used in communication products such as a personal computer and a mobile device.
The main feature of the USB is that it supports hot plug and plug-and-play. When a USB device is inserted into a computer system, a motherboard automatically loads a drive program needed by the USB device. Thus, it is more convenient in usage than other buses such as a peripheral component interconnect (PCI).
Most computer system includes multiple USB ports. FIG. 1A is a schematic diagram showing a front panel of a casing 12 of a conventional computer system 10. The front panel of the casing 12 of the computer system 10 usually includes a power switch 102 and an optical disk drive (ODD) 104 thereon, and it also includes multiple USB ports thereon. As shown in FIG. 1A, the front panel of the casing 12 of the computer system 10 includes two USB ports 106 and 108 thereon.
FIG. 1B is a schematic diagram showing a rear panel of the casing 12 of the conventional computer system 10. Generally, the rear panel of the casing 12 of the computer system 10 usually includes a power socket 114 and various input/output (I/O) ports thereon, such as a network port 116, an earphone port 118, a microphone port 120, a mouse port 122, a keyboard port 124 and two USB ports 126 and 128.
FIG. 2 is a schematic diagram showing a motherboard disposed at the conventional computer system 10. The motherboard 20 includes a central processing unit (CPU) 202, a north chip 204, the south bridge chip 206, two USB port connectors 210, two USB ports 126 and 128 thereon. The south bridge chip 206 provides four groups of USB signals, two groups of the USB signals are transmitted to the two USB ports 126 and 128, and the other two groups of the USB signals are transmitted to other USB ports outside the motherboard 20 via the two USB port connectors 210.
As shown in FIG. 1B, the USB ports 126 and 128 at the rear panel of the casing 12 are fixed at the margin of the motherboard 20. That is, in FIG. 2, the USB ports 126 and 128 at the margin of the motherboard 20 are fixed at the rear panel of the casing 12 through holes (not shown) at the rear panel of the casing 12 of the computer system 10 in FIG. 1B. Moreover, the two USB port connectors 210 may be connected to two USB ports, as shown in FIG. 2, two USB port connectors 210 may be connected to the USB ports 106 and 108 at the front panel of the casing 12 in FIG. 1A via a USB cable (not shown), and two USB port connectors 210 may be connected to the south bridge chip 206 via layout traces 232 at the motherboard. The USB ports 126 and 128 may be connected to the south bridge chip 206 via layout traces 236 at the motherboard.
FIG. 3 is a schematic diagram showing a motherboard in a casing of a computer system. As shown in FIG. 3, the USB ports 106 and 108 at the front panel of the casing 12 may be connected to the two USB port connectors 210 via a USB cable 250. Moreover, the USB ports 126 and 128 at the margin of the motherboard 20 are directly fixed at the rear panel of the casing 12 of the computer system 10.
As shown in FIG. 3, a USB device (such as a USB drive which is not shown) inserted into the USB port 106 or 108 can communicate with the south bridge chip 206 via the USB cable 250, two USB port connectors 210 and the motherboard layout traces 232. A USB device (not shown) inserted into the USB port 126 or 128 can communicate with the south bridge chip 206 via motherboard layout traces 236.
The data transmitting speed of USB is continuously improved. The maximum transmitting speed of USB 1.1 is 12 Mbps, and the maximum transmitting speed of USB 2.0 is 480 Mbps. The maximum transmitting speed of USB 3.0 promoted recently exceeds 4.8 Gbps. However, since USB 3.0 is not widely used and its price is relative high, the number of the USB 3.0 ports provided by the south bridge chip 206 at the motherboard is small (such as only two USB 3.0 ports are provided). Thus, the number of the USB ports at the casing may be much larger than that of the USB 3.0 ports disposed at the motherboard.
Taking FIG. 3 as an example, it is assumed that the south bridge chip 206 only provides two USB 3.0 ports, and thus if the two USB 3.0 ports are directly disposed at the rear panel of the casing 12 via the motherboard layout traces 236, the motherboard layout traces 232, the USB port connector 210, and the USB cable 250 are not need to be disposed on the motherboard 20. However, the USB ports at the front panel of the casing 12 cannot communicate with any USB devices. That is, if the user needs to use the USB 3.0 port, he or she needs to connect the USB device to the rear panel of the casing, which is rather inconvenient.